


Substitute Soulmates

by Lanyonn



Category: B.A.P, K-pop
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23182990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lanyonn/pseuds/Lanyonn
Summary: “he’s a guy who cares for you, who is by your side, who knows all your likes and dislikes, who is one the same frequency as you are – he is just not your soul mate.”
Relationships: Bang Yongguk/Kim Himchan
Kudos: 11





	Substitute Soulmates

Yongguk’s first impression of Himchan is that he is a loud, flippant guy who will prove to be much worse than his former roommate since he cannot even move into their shared dorm room without causing a ruckus loud enough to draw the attention of the entire floor.

“What’s wrong?” Yongguk bites out in exasperation and ends up feeling like a sadistic sod when Himchan looks at him as helplessly as a maimed kitten dying of an incurable disease.

“This is not my bag,” he whimpers, pointing at the violently electric blue holdall splattered with butterflies in various neon shades. He looks at it as if it is the bane of his whole existence. “They mixed up my luggage with someone else’s! I don’t believe it! Where is my stuff? I want my stuff back!”

Personally, Yongguk doubts that it is possible that there is another student in the university with a bag as ugly as that but he tries to reassure Himchan anyway.

“Just report it to the warden and at the main office. The other person must be looking for their things, too.”

Yongguk is a quiet guy who keeps to himself. But apparently, there is something about his stoic manner and sharp appearance that has led to people labelling him as a ‘bully’ all his life even when there is no evidence of Yongguk ever committing such an offence. He has managed to avoid the stigma in college and plans on keeping it so.

Hence, he tries to get Himchan to stop making those painful whimpers and just sit down and get himself together first. People are beginning to pass by casting covert glances towards Room 4003, wondering if they should call for help or something.

Yongguk surrenders his secret stashes of chocolate and beer to Himchan and then accompanies him to the warden’s office where a junior is already camped with a bag which is a replica of the one Yongguk is dragging behind him.

“Why don’t you guys label your stuff?” grumbles the warden.

But both Himchan and Daehyun ignore him.

Yongguk feels mortified as the awkward third wheel when Daehyun asks out Himchan for a movie after having exchanged merely three sentences with him. And for the life of him, Yongguk cannot figure out why Himchan acquiesces so readily.

Himchan is lounging on Yongguk’s bed later that night while Yongguk tries to get in some extra reading before the classes begin but he cannot concentrate – not with a stranger lying on his bed. Yongguk abhors it when other people lie on his bed or fiddle with his things. That’s his only quirk but a strong one nevertheless.

And it is getting on his nerves so bad! But he has a sneaking suspicion that Himchan’s hushed chatter will turn into loud complaints if he asks him to fucking get off his bed and if anything, all the noise at this time of night will surely cast murky shadows on his reputation. So he sits tight, his eyes fixed on the textbook in front of him.

“I can’t believe I found my soul mate!” Himchan is in seventh heaven. “I thought it was such a troublesome thing when my luggage got exchanged with his but it was fate. Fate!”

Yongguk throws a repulsive glance towards the said luggage still lying unpacked in a corner.

“I knew we were meant for each other the moment I saw him!”

Obviously, Yongguk thinks, if there are two people who like that obnoxious piece of junk within a mile’s radius of each other, then they have to be meant for each other. No one else can risk sharing half their soul with a person like that.

In any case, that is when Yongguk learns of Himchan’s fantastical belief in the cheesy old concept of “soul mates”.

“Of course, everyone has a soul mate,” Himchan says placidly. He is stretched out on Yongguk’s bed again, a book open in front of him, his laptop by his side but an incessant stream of words keep flowing from his lips. However, Yongguk has suffered through this for two full weeks already and he never thought that he would be comfortable with the idea of it, but he is. He is okay with Himchan using his bed as his personal lounge-chair.

“I don’t believe in that shit,” Yongguk says dryly, twirling a pencil in his hand. “If I have a soul – and I doubt the existence of the soul in the first place – then it is very much complete and my own.”

Himchan is unfazed by such criticism.

“You don’t have to believe in it,” he says, smiling at Yongguk in a condescending it’s-okay-if-you-are-an-idiot kind of way. “It is like that whether you believe in it or not.”

Yongguk learns early on that there is no point arguing with Himchan about certain matters. Himchan has some things that he trusts with a religious devotion and his fantasy of “soul mates” is something that he believes in more than anything else.

Thankfully, Himchan spends the rest of the night with his boyfriend and Yongguk is grateful to be able to have some Himchan-free time. Himchan believes that being roommates instantly equals being best friends and his definition of best friends includes sticking to Yongguk (like a leech) all day. And of course, Yongguk does not have the requisite skills to convince Himchan to the contrary.

They break up even before the semester is over.

Himchan slinks into the room gloomily one night after a date that is abruptly cut short and sits down at one end of his own bed, knees drawn up and face hidden in his hands, sobbing quietly and he scares the living daylights out of Yongguk, who stands awkwardly near him, wondering what he should say.

But Himchan throws himself at Yongguk the next moment crying miserably into his chest and it is better and worse at the same time because now Yongguk feels there is something he can do for Himchan but it hurts so much to see him in such a state – it hurts Yongguk like nothing has ever hurt him before.

He rubs Himchan’s back, strokes his hair and gruffly murmurs that “It’ll be okay”. He’s there for Himchan.

“I really thought he was my soul mate,” Himchan says sadly.

Yongguk has brought him to a Mexican restaurant for dinner because as far as he remembers, Himchan never mentioned coming out here on a date. And Yongguk wants to distract Himchan from his sorrows in some way. But the latter seems adamant on holding onto the troublesome thoughts.

“He was not,” says Yongguk firmly even though he doesn’t believe in all the soul mate crap. “He was an asshole. And you are better off without him.”

He awkwardly reaches for Himchan’s wrist and Himchan immediately entwines their fingers together, looking for warmth and support.

“On the bright side, you are now free to meet your real soul mate, right?”

Himchan nods fervently.

“Yes! Yes, I will find him. I will definitely find my real soul mate – the one and only one.”

“Right,” says Yongguk considerably relieve by Himchan’s new train of thought.

Although somewhere at the back of his mind, a faint sense of foreboding is beginning to rear up its head.

By the time the winter break starts, Himchan is his loud, cheerful self again and Yongguk waves off a childishly enthusiastic Himchan before he drives back to his own hometown.

The first day he wakes up alone in his bedroom he cannot get over how quiet and lonely it suddenly feels. His family shares his traits of being quiet and thoughtful and keeping to themselves and by the third day, Yongguk misses Himchan so much that he actually picks up his phone and carries it around everywhere wondering if it is okay to call him, wondering if it is okay to text him for no reason whatsoever.

What he would have eventually done is a moot point because Himchan is the one calling him first.

“Bbang!” he exclaims, and Yongguk’s face lights up with a smile – he catches his reflection in the mirror smiling back at him. “Did you lose my number? Why haven’t you called to check if I got home okay? Do you even know who I am? Did you forget me? What are you doing? Did you get a girlfriend? Is that any reason to forget me?

Himchan barrages him with questions he doesn’t wait to be answered and he continues in this strain for a while and Yongguk throws himself on his bed, savouring the next best thing he can get at the moment – the next best thing to a Himchan sprawled over his bed talking at the speed of light.

He tells Yongguk anything and everything about his home – his family cat gave birth to four kittens (“I will send you their pictures”), his sister running away with her boyfriend but no one actually noticing till the said boyfriend’s family came knocking on their door (Yongguk is considerably less surprised by this piece of news than he ought to be), the bougainvillea tree that had been planted when he was born being struck by lightning (and a lengthy insight into how it will affect his future). Himchan takes almost an hour before he tells Yongguk what he really meant to tell Yongguk all along – the thing that he had called to share with him.

“You won’t believe it but I found him,” Himchan sounds nervous with excitement. “My soul mate! He has been there right next to me all along and I can’t believe I have been looking around everywhere when he has been so close to me all this time!”

The lazy smile that had adorned Yongguk’s face for the past hour falters, his heart fluttering apprehensively.

“Yeah? Anyone I know?”

“You haven’t met him. But do you remember I told you about a dongsaeng from school I am close to – Jongup? He asked me out when I got back on Friday and he is five years younger than me and just a high school sophomore and this is so wrong, Bbang! I can feel how it is a hundred different kinds of wrong. But we were caught in a snowstorm when we went skiing and we were waiting for it to clear out and the moment was just so perfect you know. And then I turn to look at him and he is already looking at me with this absolutely angelic smile on his perfect face. And my heart just knew when he kissed me. As pure as snow. Oh, Bbang! I can’t describe to you how perfect this feels!”

“Yeah...”

“Bang Yongguk! Please sound more excited for me! I was always the one taking care of him when he was younger because he was slow and tended to get bullied a little. And he always followed me around. And I really, really love it the best when I am with him! It feels so perfect! He knows all about me and I know all about him and we are on the same frequency! Always! I am such a fool to go looking around everywhere when he was there all along by my side. Always!”

Later, Yongguk realises that “always” is neither as long nor as enviable as Himchan had made it sound then.

Jongup is young – still a high school student – and his attraction towards Himchan begins to fade as soon as the latter has returned to college. Yongguk can tell because no matter how much he claims that he is in love with Jongup, Himchan cannot hide his disappointment when the latter does not receive his calls, takes days to reply to his emails and Himchan wants to believe that he is an understanding boyfriend. He knows what high school was like – and it must be the same for Jongup. He has his b-boying and dance crew and performances, too. And Jongup must be disappointed, too, since Himchan can’t make it to them because they live so far apart.

Soul mates or no soul mates, Yongguk secretly thinks that a long distance relationship with a teenager is the worst Himchan could have gotten himself into.

But he is soon proven wrong (again).

Himchan returns one morning – Yongguk had stayed up worrying about him all night because he isn’t supposed to be gone all night – and Himchan is hung over, his clothes unkempt and between vomiting into the toilet and gulping down the hangover soup and washing himself and crawling into Yongguk’s bed, Himchan tells him that he slept with Daehyun last night – but it was only a one night stand.

“I hate myself,” Himchan whimpers and Yongguk can feel again how badly it hurts to watch Himchan cry. “I am the worst.”

Maybe – just maybe – if Himchan wasn’t so hung up on his concept of “soul mates”, Yongguk feels, he won’t hurt as much. Everyone makes stupid mistakes. Everyone fucks up once in a while. But through it all, Himchan’s devout belief in his “soul mate” remains as strong, as pure as ever and more than anyone else, Himchan is the one who ends up hurt and disappointed.

Himchan does not mention to Jongup that he cheated on him – the kid doesn’t need this type of trauma – and he sinks into a quiet melancholy when Jongup accepts their break up with nonchalant calm.

He still goes to classes with Yongguk and sticks to his side all day. But Himchan’s new pastime seems to be staring off into space, thinking a thousand thoughts over and over. And Yongguk misses Himchan terribly even when he falls asleep holding onto Yongguk’s arm, stealing Yongguk’s blanket.

_“Please be your old cheerful self again. I miss your noisy chatter. I miss your nagging about anything and everything. I miss your hysterical laughter. I miss you demanding absurd things at absurd times.”_

It sounds incredibly selfish even inside his head and Yongguk can only watch Himchan fight his battles by himself, get back on his feet by himself – the only way a person can recover for real. He tries to gauge Himchan’s mood by subtle signs.

On Mondays, he seems to like it when they walk to the beach in the evening. When it rains early morning, it seems to depress Himchan a lot so Yongguk wakes up before him to prepare a warm breakfast of his favourite foods to cheer him up even a little.

Himchan seems the happiest when Yongguk lets him decide what shoes he should buy and what clothes suit him the best and he seems his brightest when acting as Yongguk’s personal stylist. Without knowing it, Yongguk has already decided that he will go to whatever lengths he needs to in order to make Himchan happy.

On nights when Himchan sits silently watching some romantic movie with a disturbingly expressionless face, Yongguk even vows to himself that he will find Himchan’s soul mate for him – two people looking for this elusive soul mate should prove better than one, anyway!

“I got you the books from the library,” calls out Himchan when he returns from the college one evening. “What are you doing?” He perks up at catching Yongguk doing something unexpected.

Yongguk is sketching with a set of colour pencils and water colours Himchan didn’t even know he owned – and Himchan has gone through all of Yongguk’s belongings one way or the other.

“What are you drawing? Abstract? What is it?” demands Himchan as his eyes eagerly scan the violet and black lines disturbed by splashes of bright colours and yet again a shape peeks through which Himchan feels is intensely familiar to him – but he can’t quite place it anywhere.

“My soul mate,” replies Yongguk simply, surveying his handiwork.

To his surprise, Himchan bursts out laughing, a deep throaty sound he hasn’t heard in ages and Yongguk smiles as he watches him.

“So your soul mate isn’t human?” Himchan teases him and then laughs again, picking up the notebook Yongguk has substituted for a sketch pad.

“Does it have to be?” Yongguk counters, winking cheekily at Himchan.

The familiar glint of mirth is dancing in Himchan’s eyes again as he looks into Yongguk’s eyes, grinning, shining.

“To each his own, huh?” And he stands observing the medley of colours and lines a while longer.

When spring blooms again, Himchan grumbles about all the fat he has accumulated over winter and Yongguk has been growing bored of his monotonous gym, anyway, so they start on a running routine through the forest five days a week. Himchan is far more out of shape than Yongguk and has to struggle hard at first. Nevertheless Yongguk ignores his panting gasps of “You go ahead” and they run the course together from start to finish.

“Do you think I’ll ever find him?” Himchan asks once when they stop for a short break because Himchan just can’t take a step more and slumps down at the foot of an oak.

“What?”

“My soul mate,” Himchan says and takes a swig from the water bottle.

“About that,” says Yongguk slowly, crouching down next to Himchan. “I have an idea.”

Himchan looks at him quizzically.

“How about you go for a substitute soul mate this time?”

“A substitute soul mate?” Himchan’s eyes widen in surprise. He has never heard of such a thing before and it definitely piques his interest.

“Yes. He is a guy who cares for you, who is by your side, who knows all your likes and dislikes, who is on the same frequency as you are – he is just not your soul mate.”

Himchan is listening to him attentively.

“If he is so perfect, Bbang, why isn’t he my soul mate?”

It seems like Yongguk has thought this through pretty thoroughly as he replies, “Imagine you are a red puzzle piece. Sometimes, isn’t there another puzzle piece that fits you well? But it isn’t red like you are. Maybe it is blue. Or green. The point being that it fits you perfectly but it isn’t yours. A substitute soul mate will be your blue puzzle piece.

“And when your real puzzle piece comes along – another red one just like you are – then won’t both of you know he is the one? Right now, you are trying to find your soul mate just by trying to fit in one part or the other and you end up with a misfit every time. And your substitute soul mate will be able to protect you against that. Plus, he will be able to tell if the next guy who comes along is the one or not. Because he will be just like him – except that he’ll be red, your colour!”

Himchan looks positively thrilled by the time Yongguk finishes his explanation and he looks at Yongguk, his eyes burning with bright hope again.

“Bbang,” he says, “you are a genius!”

He gets on his knees and leans towards Yongguk.

“I need to kiss you. You are a freaking Einstein!”

Yongguk laughs as Himchan grabs his face and attempts to kiss him and Yongguk puts up his hands between them, trying to push away Himchan’s face and they fall to the ground struggling playfully.

Eventually, Himchan gets off him and they sit up, Yongguk brushing the mud off his hair.

“But where do I get a substitute soul mate?” Himchan pouts, the flaw in the “perfect” plan annoys him. He looks at Yongguk when the latter doesn’t answer him. “Bbang?”

“Maybe you have someone like that around you,” Yongguk says lightly, avoiding Himchan’s eyes, “someone really close.”

But Himchan isn’t dense. And he doesn’t miss the faint blush colouring Yongguk’s cheeks and ears.

“Bang Yongguk, are you asking me out?”

Yongguk looks at him then and Himchan blinks rapidly, his heart hammering inside his chest.

“Substitute soul mate,” Yongguk says quickly, “I am asking you out as a substitute soul mate.”  
  


He had watched Daehyun kiss Himchan a couple of times and he has seen Himchan kiss someone at a party once for a dare. He had wondered what it would be like to kiss Himchan himself. He had dreamt of it, too.

But nothing his mind can conjure is anywhere near how wonderful it feels to have Himchan’s lips on his own and even though his face is warm and sweaty and his shirt squelches and sticks to Yongguk’s hands when he puts his arm around Himchan, Yongguk is in heaven.

Yongguk himself isn’t exactly certain what being a ‘substitute soul mate’ entails but nothing between them really changes except that Himchan gets as snugly towards him as a newborn kitten and other than talking incessantly, he finds something new to do when they are in their shared room together – cuddle up to Yongguk and spend tantalizing moments making out, kissing him, touching him or simply sitting still with his arms around Yongguk, listening to the staccato rhythm of his heart beating for him.

But he doesn’t go all the way and Yongguk – Yongguk is only a substitute soul mate and it seems like it would be a gross violation of the ‘secret code of substitute soul mates’ if he initiated something like that on his own. He isn’t the one who is really meant for Himchan, after all.

Himchan asks Yongguk to stay back for summer break. He is interning at an interior design firm for the summer and Yongguk still has no concrete plans for the month so he decides to do what Himchan wants and that is when Youngjae comes into their lives – more like crashes into it.

Unlike ever before, Himchan does not immediately have an epiphany that Youngjae could be ‘the one’.

In fact, they begin by fighting over a parking space just because both of them are the type of people who would stand in the sweltering heat going red in the face and squabbling like ten-year-olds.

Himchan is fuming when he gets back home that evening.

“I have never met a more annoying person,” he screams out as he falls into Yongguk’s arms, “and we got assigned to work as partners! And he is a freshman here – can you believe it? What kind of freshmen spends his summer interning? And he is supposed to be some sort of genius, too! I hate him!”

Yongguk caresses the small of his back and soothes him with soft kisses. That is an advantage of being a substitute soul mate. He can do so much more to placate and calm Himchan now. In fact, it is something that he has learnt only recently – nothing works better than a sweet, slow kiss when it comes to relaxing Himchan.

Himchan enters into their kiss with a keen eagerness every single time – relishing each touch, bite, lick, and he can never get enough of kissing Yongguk.

Himchan has a policy of making good friends with people he works with on a daily basis so he grudgingly offers Youngjae the hand of friendship. The younger guy accepts it more readily and heartily than Himchan had expected him to and he is satisfied. They soon develop a close relationship working side by side, subjected to similar hardships and getting excited over the same achievements.

Yongguk is the one who first senses that maybe Youngjae could be the ‘one’. He has joined the two roommates on a pizza date – Himchan’s treat – and Yongguk can’t help seeing his own loving patience reflected in Youngjae’s eyes as he sits listening to Himchan’s endless chatter about everything, and he gives him all the right responses, and encourages him to talk even more.

Jealousy?

Yongguk remembers how he had once promised himself that he would do anything to find Himchan’s soul mate and no, he will absolutely not wreck things up now when Himchan looks so beautifully pleased and well-loved. Because he does not miss that sparkle in Youngjae’s eyes.

He knows the familiar hesitant yet determined manner as Youngjae surprises Himchan with a collector’s edition of his favourite magazine at the end of a bad week at work, when he discreetly surrenders his kiwi soda to Himchan because the latest flavour of minty pineapple the other has ordered is definitely not to his taste, when he lets Yongguk sit on Himchan’s right (the side where Himchan tends to lean his head when he is falling asleep) during the movies because Himchan is more comfortable with it being that way.

And as the summer draws to a close, Yongguk is certain in his own mind that Himchan’s Prince Charming has finally come along.

He feels a lump in his throat whenever he thinks of it like that. It is okay when he watches Himchan attempt to strangle Youngjae because he made fun of his English accent. It is okay when Himchan falls asleep on the beach with his head in Youngjae’s lap. It is okay when he demands piggyback rides from Youngjae just because he can.

But when Himchan climbs into his lap in the dead of the night and his long fingers grab Yongguk’s back and he finds his lips with a sense of unbearable desire – it hurts Yongguk. His heart twists and is heavy and he wonders if Himchan can feel it in the way he wraps his around Himchan a little too tight, in the way he never lets Himchan sleep in his own bed anymore, in the way he doesn’t let go of him even when he falls asleep.

They are out at a club. And Himchan, always the ulzzang, is especially dazzling in a silvery grey skinny jeans and a lustrous black oxford shirt which contrasts revealingly against the milky white skin of his delicate throat and arms.

Youngjae, of course, cannot keep his eyes off Himchan.

Yongguk says he will go and buy some beer. He lingers near the busy bar – he can pretend to be gone for any length of time under the pretext and sure enough, by the time he does return, Youngjae has led Himchan to the dance floor. And he is holding him close as if he’ll never let go of Himchan. And he is looking into Himchan’s eyes, his face just a little too close to Himchan’s, the words and feelings he can no longer contain threatening to burst out of him.

Yongguk knows this is it.

He turns away.

Yongguk cannot bear the thought of going back to his dorm just then where every corner is permeated with Himchan, where every single bit bears a mark declaring that Himchan has claimed it as his own. Including Yongguk. Yongguk’s mind. Yongguk’s heart. Yongguk’s body. Yongguk’s soul.

Yongguk isn’t the one to drown his sorrows in alcohol but he supposes that there is a first time for everything and this might be it. Somewhere near the end of his third bottle of soju, Himchan’s voice begins to reverberate in his mind. The alcohol opens up the very doors it’s meant to barricade and lock down tonight.

_“What will I do when I find my soul mate? What a question, Bbang! Hmm... But I do know what I will do then. I will live happily ever after.”_

Yongguk had laughed at that.

_“I will! I will live in a beautiful white house with him and it will have a wonderful large garden and we will get a big dog first – a Collie or a German Shepherd. And there’ll be kids, of course. Two, at least. Then three. Maybe four. A pair of twins would be nice so that I can buy stuff for them in pairs. And he’ll be the most wonderful father to them and won’t have the heart to yell at them so I guess I’ll be the one enforcing order. He’ll cook, too. He’ll make me breakfast every morning._

_And he’ll give me the most wonderful massages when I’m tired. And he won’t look at any other guy except me because I’m the only one for him. We will go vacationing every year. And he’ll love the kids so much! We’ll be the happiest family in the world._

_And we’ll grow old together. Of course, I’ll still be perfect when I have grey hair and wrinkles and he’ll think so, too. Because every day he will love me more and more and when I’ll have lost my memory and lie dying in a quiet room, he’ll be the only one I’ll allow to be by my side because he’ll be the only one I’ll remember even when I forget myself!”_

A memory.

It will always be just a memory for Yongguk.

Isn’t it better this way?

Somehow, it doesn’t seem like a future that Yongguk would be able to gift Himchan, anyway.

After all, he is only a substitute soul mate.

Himchan isn’t there.

Of course, thinks Yongguk, he isn’t there.

It is the middle of the day and Yongguk had woken up on a bench in a park and has finally managed to find his way home. When he walks into the empty dorm, the ache in his heart grows even more and there is nothing even the Tylenol that he has bought can do anything about it.

He emerges out of the shower and does a double take.

He couldn’t possibly have missed Himchan when he got back. So he must have returned while Yongguk was cleaning himself up. Because Himchan is there right now – as real as the sunshine streaming in through the half-open windows. He is pacing the room but stops abruptly when he sees Yongguk.

“So you are back,” he says faintly, and lets out a deep sigh. His eyes are red, bloodshot. He looks tired, haggard. His hair is dishevelled (he runs his fingers through his hair when he is panicking) and he looks nothing like the Adonis Yongguk left with Youngjae last night.

“Bbang! I have been so worried about you! I went searching for you everywhere! You keep leaving your phone behind. How many times do I have to tell you...”

“Channie,” Yongguk strides up to Himchan, who is leaning against a chair, his voice weak with exhaustion. “I am sorry, Channie.”

“Why did you disappear like that, Bbang?” Himchan looks at him, uncertain, afraid. “I thought you might have taken ill or something. Gotten an emergency call or something. But Jae said that you probably left with someone. That I don’t have to worry like this about you...”

Yongguk tries to hug Himchan but he backs away.

“Did you leave with someone, Guk-ah? A boy? A girl? Who was it? Someone you knew? A stranger?”

Himchan’s eyes are glistening as he struggles to keep his voice even. He flinches away when Yongguk tries to touch him and crosses his arms across his chest.

“There is no one, Channie,” Yongguk feels weak. “There is no one but you.”

Himchan’s lips tremble visibly. And then it hits Yongguk. Himchan has been crying.

“Why did you leave like that? Without a word. You just disappeared, leaving me behind. And I have been searching and searching but I couldn’t find you.”

Even the thought of it is so painful that Himchan relents and throws his arms around Yongguk who hugs him back, hard, with all the strength he can muster. He lifts up Himchan and carries him to his bed. Their bed. It has been ‘their’ bed since day one.

Himchan doesn’t let go of his hold on Yongguk’s neck, pulls him down over himself.

“Tell me I am the only one, Yongguk. Tell me again that I am the only one.”

Yongguk is only too willing to comply.

“You are the only one, Himchan. You have always been the only one.” Yongguk kisses his jaw, his neck, kisses his chest as he unbuttons his shirt. “You will always be the only one.”

Himchan brings Yongguk’s face close to his again and kisses him. Once. Twice. Thrice. Again and again and again till they are panting hard, out of breath.

They make love.

Yongguk is sweet and gentle but much too passionate. He has Himchan writhing under him in throes of passion, his senses in a state of wild disarray much before Yongguk is stirred to a similar level of fervour.

He whispers devilish things to Himchan and his lovely smile has never seemed so much like a wicked smirk and Himchan surrenders to him in wanton moans and futile pleadings.

“Took your own sweet time, didn’t you?”

_Took you a long time to find me. Making love to me._

_I’m half your soul. How could you have lived so long without me?_

_You lazy ass bastard, couldn’t you have hurried up? Come to me sooner?_

_Made me go through so much heartache, you idiot!_

Himchan traces his fingers up Yongguk’s chest, smooth and muscular, up his strong throat and runs it through his hair, cropped closely on the sides and back.

Yongguk kisses his nose.

“Because I am stupid.”

_And blind._

_And deaf._

_Definitely dumb._

“I guess it is okay.” Himchan climbs over him, straddling him, and inhales the musky scent that is Yongguk before kissing the curve of his neck. “Because we have forever. We have all the time in the world. Just the two of us.”

_Because you are mine._

_My missing puzzle piece._

_My knight in shining armour._

_My Prince Charming._

_My only one._

_My soul mate._

**Finis.**

**Author's Note:**

> This is the repost of a story I published on AFF back in 2014.


End file.
